19/01/2009

With an Oscar for The Counterfeiters [+lee también:
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The quality of Austrian films is often showcased at festivals, but last year was a particularly good one, starting with Berlin, where Luigi Falorni’s Heart of Fire [+lee también:
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At the Locarno Film Festival, the Leopard for Best Debut Film went to Händl Klaus’ March, while Philipp Stölzl’s North Face [+lee también:
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On the other side of the Atlantic, the Montreal, Telluride and Toronto festivals put the spotlight on Austrian film. The Amsterdam Film Festival hosted the avant-première of politically-engaged documentary filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer’s Let's Make Money and a retrospective dedicated to Nikolaus Geyrhalter.

A total of 39 Austrian films received 292 invitations to screen at international festivals and 14 of them scooped 39 awards, as well as the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

The Oscar for Stefan Ruzowitzky’s The Counterfeiters also fuelled a more exceptional phenomenon: a renewed interest from Austrian audiences in local film. Thanks to the domestic box office results for Ruzowitzky’s Oscar-winning film (176,800 admissions), Thomas Roth’s Falco: Damn It, We're Still Alive! [+lee también:
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The most highly anticipated titles of 2009 are Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes, Wolfgang Murnberger’s The Bone Man, Benjamin Heisenberg’s The Robber, Ulrich Seidl’s Im Keller, La Pivellina by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, Michael Glawogger’s Contact High and Kill Daddy Good Night, and Jasmila Žbanic’s Memory Full.